With conventional practice, plastic bottles are blow molded in operations involving generally the sequence of extruding a tubular plastic, e.g., polyethylene parison, placing the parison within and between separable sections of a cavitated mold which closes upon the parison and subsequently blow molding the parison into the shape of the final container. Subsequently, the BFS bottle is filled, sealed and optionally labelled.
The liquid in the bottle is dispensed either in the form of a stream or drops. Where the liquid is to be dispensed in drops, typically, the orifice is formed in a separate structure of a different material which structure is subsequently inserted into the dropper tip. An "insert mold", i.e. a pre-made dropper tip, can also be mechanically inserted into the bottle. This step occurs after blowing and filling but prior to sealing. This adds an additional step to the manufacturing process and additional costs.
With prior art drop dispensing devices, if there is a small orifice but too much pressure is applied, the bottle will dispense the liquid in a stream rather than as droplets.
It is an object of the invention to form a BFS bottle in one step with a dropper tip having an orifice for dispensing liquid in the form of a drop.
It is a further object of the invention to form the orifice in the dropper tip such that regardless of the pressure applied to the bottle, the liquid will only be dispensed as drops. A stream of discharged liquid will not be formed.
The present invention, in one aspect, embodies a method of forming in a single step a BFS bottle having an orifice in the dropper tip.
The invention, in an other aspect, embodies the mold used in the method.
In a preferred embodiment, the cavitated mold halves are characterized by inserts which form a neck in the dropper bottle. The neck has walls which define a thin film flow path or orifice for the liquid in the bottle.
The invention, in still another aspect, embodies the bottle formed with the orifice in the dispensing